If you've been to my blog before (or my house), it's likely that you know I enjoy woodworking. By no means would I consider myself great, though. In fact, in the previous post I did about a jewelry box, I shared about some lessons I learned. They still apply.

Baba (Macedonian term for grandmother) has been aging; I wanted to make her something special. For the holidays this year, the whole family flew back to Michigan to spend 8 days reminiscing and enjoying each other's company. After all, we never how much longer we have. A few years ago, she got a pacemaker. In 2014, she lost her husband of 60 years. She's getting tired. She's getting old.

​This year, however, she got a new heart.

Having a 3D printer has been a blessing in so many ways. I've been fortunate to create some pretty incredible products with it, so it was only natural to print a heart-shaped jewelry box for Baba:

This was fun, but it wasn't impressive. It wasn't anything that I would be proud to hand over to my 79 year-old grandmother, no matter how cool it was that melted plastic made a container that looked like I heart I was responsible for designing... So I went and bought a couple sheets of lumber:

Purple Heart and Beechwood

The idea here was that I could use the CNC machine at one of our local high schools to print a 3D-modeled design of the heart I was looking for. "Sweet", I thought, "this project is going to be done perfectly and in about a week... Woohoo!"

Wait...

All I have to do it glue the wood, design the model on the computer, and press print on the CNC machine.

No.

With all the talk of what technology can do, and how it can make our lives easier, there are instances in which the sweat of a human being can be seen in the quality of a product. While it is true that my finished product would've been much closer to perfection, that's not what handmade gifts were meant to be. There are times for automation, but this wasn't one of them.

Using a Dremel, cut out an inlet for the lid to rest in the jewelry box top

As you may be able to tell, this is NOT perfect. In fact, there are a lot of flaws. I got rid of many, but intentionally kept a few. It's real.

Apply four layers of poly-oil to the interior and exterior of the box and lid

Using a flocking gun, dyed adhesive, and fabric, spray the interior of the box with the felt

Let it dry overnight

Shake out the excess

Flip the box over

Using a branding iron, put your mark on it

Stand back and enjoy

What I learned

If you've made it this far on a blog post that seems to have nothing to do with education, technology, or teaching mathematics, I applaud you. Seriously.

I learned that I'm capable of doing something pretty cool without the help of technology.

I learned that cutting wood out from a stencil doesn't mean that the cuts will be close to each other. Not even a little. Damn, that was a lot of sanding.

I learned that using a branding iron is no joke. Once it was ALL DONE, I stamped the bottom of the box. When I pull the iron back, only "EVENS" and "RAFTED" showed up. Imagine seeing a scar this bad on something you were finished with. It was rough. Re-sand, re-apply the poly-oil, and try the stamp again. It worked. Whew.

I learned that my boys are watching me. During the process, they were excited to help, excited to learn, and so happy to see the final product.

I learned that small mistakes are a good thing. Yeah, ok, so I know this already, but it was confirmed through the project. As a perfectionist, making a mistake on something as permanent as a wooden box is not an easy thing to fix. I had to be alright with not having it perfect. In fact, I had to want​ it to not be perfect. Big shift, indeed.

I learned that, no matter how technology evolves and finds ways to make our lives better, easier, more efficient, there's nothing quite like handing over an empty box filled with love and effort.